Recent Reads: Plan B (Book #21 of 2013)

For my 21st book of the year, I read my 4th Jonathan Tropper book.
Did you know I love his writing?
Yeah. I do.

Plan B is Tropper’s debut novel. I actually love that I haven’t read them in the order of publication…it’s fun seeing the way his writing has changed. However, this book proves that he always has been (and I’m sure always will be) an amazing writer.
I love that a man writing about with a male protagonist can make me, a female who is a fair deal younger than most of his characters, relate.
That’s the most important thing about writing. Whether you’re writing from a boy/girl/man/woman/animal perspective, a good book will keep you hooked, relatable to your own life or not.

Plan B is narrated by Ben, a recent divorced man stuck in a dead-end job. He is 30, completely lost and confused about his life. No idea how he got to that stage so fast and how little he knows compared to what he thought he would know. At his ex-girlfriend/now-friend Lindsay’s 30th birthday party, a few of his friends reunite and it doesn’t exactly go as planned. Jack, their now-famous movie actor friend, is a coke addict who gets into fights with busboys. Chuck is a cocky surgeon who is smarmy about women. And Alison is completely obsessed with Jack, who has been nothing but her friend for 10 years and she can’t accept that fact.

When Jack’s cocaine addiction becomes apparent, Alison tries to devise a plan to help get Jack off of the drugs. An intervention doesn’t work, so they move to plan B (ha ha) which entails kidnapping Jack and bringing him to Alison’s family home in the mountains, locking him in a room, and trying to cut him off cold turkey. The 5 friends actually follow through with this, a crazy idea at best, an illegal one at worst, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that they are all at a crossroads in their life, looking for something to gain for themselves as well.

In typical Tropper fashion, the book is funny and touching and sad and poignant.
I can honestly say that his books aren’t predictable, though they seemingly would be.
I really enjoy his writing and I’m super glad that I still have two more books to read. I’m not ready to have to wait!